The present disclosure relates generally to methods for sharing athletic activity information and systems implementing the same. In particular, this disclosure discusses personal training and fitness tracking methods and systems on mobile electronic devices and other related hardware.
Known personal training and fitness tracking systems are not entirely satisfactory for the range of applications in which they are employed. For example, many conventional systems do not adequately share results with friends and/or the public. While many conventional systems allow the logging of data related athletic activities and uploading that data to a server, many fail to provide meaningful community-sharing features. Providing the public and friends with the opportunity to “beat” locally posted “challenges” serves as great motivation to spur athletic activity: users may compare their results with others shared in his community to accurately compare the user's level of success on the challenge. Conventional systems' lack of such community features leaves these systems with plenty of room for improvement as both a motivational tool and tracking system. Further, they lack the entertainment value associated with challenge-based competitions.
Further, many conventional systems require the user to access and view separate devices (such as a mobile phone) to view athletic training data. This may require the user to turn away from his path as a result. This is inconvenient at best, and could even result in injury. Therefore, systems and methods that allow users to persistently view updated navigational information and training data while training (particularly with respect to data related to the challenges discussed above) are needed. For example, eyewear capable of displaying computer generated images may be particularly useful in providing such a persistent view; many conventional systems do not implement such hardware.
Further, many existing systems rely largely on symbolic maps to illustrate navigational information. While map-based navigation is effective, purely symbolic representations often imprecisely communicate real world locations, as they often lack an adequate visual representation of displayed locations. Currently lacking is means to display navigational graphics overlaid in user's current field of vision to more precisely and in a less obstructed manner display such navigational information (such as with the aforementioned eyewear, for example).
Thus, there exists a need for methods for sharing athletic activities that improve upon and advance the design of known athletic training logging systems and devices. Examples of new and useful methods for sharing athletic activity information relevant to the needs existing in the field are discussed below.
Disclosure addressing one or more of the identified existing needs is provided in the detailed description below. Examples of references relevant to the disclosure provided below include the following pending U.S. Patent Applications that share common ownership with the disclosed inventions: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/869,481, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/329,118, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/175,816. The complete disclosures of the above patent applications are herein incorporated by reference for all purposes.